Zena el Khalil poses in the midst of her new exhibit, which makes the rubble of her mother and father’s destroyed homes in Lebanon into art. Photo: Eva Zayat

Artist Zena el Khalil doesn’t have the family home she remembers from childhood. Her mother’s house in Lebanon was destroyed in a U.S. bomb attack in 1983, while her father’s house was occupied by the Israeli army for 22 years, until its withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. “Every home my grandfathers built was destroyed, bombed or occupied,” says Khalil.

This realization has led her to a notable turn away from her previously flamboyant work, like running around Beirut in a big pink wedding dress to spread a message of love and peace, and creating hot pink glittery sculptures mocking gender and political stereotypes. Her latest work soberly examines one of the harshest realities of living with war — displacement, and the loss of home.

In her current exhibition, “From Mirfaq to Vega,” el Khalil explores and mourns the physical and emotional repercussions of the destruction of her parents’ ancestral homes over decades of war and occupation in Lebanon. She does this through paintings, poetry, sculpture and sound. The exhibit is on view at the Giorgio Persano Gallery in Turin, Italy, through January 10, 2015.

Here, she tells the TED Blog the story of her journey into her family’s past to retrieve the broken pieces, in the hope that art can transmute conflict and suffering into peace.

Tell me how you made this new work, and what it’s about.

This work is about home — those we’ve had and those we’ve lost — and the people who destroyed them. It’s about land, boundaries, walls, breaking walls down — but ultimately, it’s about forgiveness and compassion and love.

My starting point was the idea that I don’t have a home that still exists from my childhood, because my parents’ houses were both blown up in two different wars in Lebanon. So I started by investigating this idea of a very personal and intimate space being taken away by force.

I’ve always grappled with the ongoing wars in my country. Now, with Syria so close by, I’m also thinking a lot about what’s happening there, and the refugees spilling into Lebanon that may not be able to go back and rebuild, possibly for decades. But the process of making these particular works took place on the sites of my own parents’ physical homes.

I began with my mother’s home, which was blown up in 1983 by the USS New Jersey when they came to Lebanon. It was just a random shelling: they were striking the mountains where my mother lives and her house was blown up. It was immediately rebuilt, because my grandfather happened to be a construction worker. But I found a house next to it that was never rebuilt — and that’s where my journey started.

I spent a few months in this abandoned house. I spent a lot time in it — weeks — drawing, talking to the walls, experiencing the space. These buildings stand as silent witnesses to the destruction around them. The house becomes a witness, in a way, both when it’s occupied and when it’s abandoned.

I started trying to connect to the energy in this house. I did some paintings and little drawings, but the turning point was a performance where I dressed in the black and white religious clothing of the people of my region, the Druze. Then, I set fire to the white veil. I burnt many veils. From their ashes, I created an ink that I used to paint with — an ink that investigates the absence of light — and started making site-specific paintings where a great violence took place. I worked outdoors, directly on the land, and I dipped the veils that I hadn’t burned in ink, pounding the canvas really hard. They are energy-based paintings. I would have a period of meditation in the beginning, and then I’d hit the canvas with the veils. So all the paintings are both the imprints of the veil and the land underneath the canvas. At the last stage, I embroidered the poetry on top.

Where is your father’s house?

My father is from the south, close to the border with Israel. Our house there was occupied for 22 years by the Israeli army. It was on top of a hill, so it was a military strategic point. They appropriated the house and turned it into their headquarters. It was used as an interrogation center, and they were holding prisoners there.

I never actually saw this home until 2000, when the Israeli army left the south of Lebanon. The day I arrived was literally a few days after the Israeli army left. I documented it, took a lot of photographs. But until now, I’d never talked about what happened in it, or worked with the material I gathered there. So this summer, I started painting down there, too.

What kind of shape was it in when you got there in 2000?

It was disgusting. It had been used as a detention center, so I remember when I first walked in, the entire floor was covered in feces. They were keeping prisoners there. We eventually blew up the house and built a brand-new one. But when the army left our house, they left behind many “blast walls,”, each one being two meters of reinforced concrete that serve as a shield. Those are the only things we kept.

There was an oak tree my father used to play in as a child. When we arrived, we found the area covered with these blast walls and also little bunkers where they used to have snipers. Some of these bunkers were near the tree. The challenge was how to dismantle the bunkers without harming the tree. It took a few years, but eventually we got rid of them, and the tree survived.

“From Mirfaq to Vega” installation view, with Israeli Army Blast “T” Walls found on site of the family home in Hasbaya, May 2000. Photo: Zena el Khalil

You brought pieces of the blast walls to Italy as part of the exhibit.

Yes. The centerpiece of the exhibition is two of these walls from the house. I shipped them from Lebanon to Italy, and each weighs close to two tons.

I also decided to make a kind of homage to the tree. I made some rotating sculptures that resemble trees. But where the branches are, there is calligraphy I sculpted out of wood and plexiglass. It’s a poem, and the whole thing turns, so that the shadows of the letters are projected on the wall. In many ways, they resemble prayer wheels or whirling dervishes. The trees rotate slowly, filling the space with light.

The text that I used in the trees is the poem “Ya Dirati,” written by a distant relative, Zayd Al Atrash, who was escaping the French in the 1920s. My great-grandfather fought alongside him and contributed a line of the poem. It was a different war, with different occupiers, but it’s the same idea about land and loss of land. We have a tradition of oral storytelling passed down through poetry. My grandmother used to sing this poem to me as a child, when she’d tell me stories of her father and my ancestors.

“Love, forgiveness.” Mantra, detail. Photo: Zena el Khalil

This poem was also turned into a song by a famous musician at the time, Asmahan, who was the niece of Zayd. I wanted to re-create her song in the exhibition, using sound to tie everything in. Working with audio producer Ray Hage, we created six ambient sound pieces that play in the background of the exhibition. They are all based on recordings we did with me reading mantras that I used for paintings in the exhibition.

Mantra 1 is: Land, honor, love, compassion, forgiveness.

Mantra 2 is: And my heart is full of love. And my heart is full of love. And my heart is full of love. And my heart is full of love. And my heart is full of forgiveness. And I shine bright, with present light.

One of the sound pieces is a remake of Asmahan’s song. I asked a musician friend, Elizabeth Ayoub, if she could sing the lines of the poem for us. I am in love with her voice, and because she is also from south Lebanon, I felt it was a perfect match. She also knows the pain of losing her home.

Why did you feel it was important to bring the walls over?

There are museums all over the world dedicated to telling the stories of wars and civilizations. There are artifacts in these museums that help us better understand these histories. The Gate of Ishtar in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin gives us an inclination of what Babylon must have been like. The blue-tiled walls adorned with lions, bulls and dragons protected the city from invaders, but also give us insight to Babylon’s culture, the religion, power and people. The Holocaust museums around the world tell us of the tragedy of the Jewish people. We see personal artifacts, human belongings — books, letters, teeth — that are extensions of lives lost. These people then cease to become nameless war victims. They are not just numbers. They are Ana, David, Catarina, Hana, Benjamin.

We don’t have spaces in the Middle East — or really anywhere — dedicated to telling the story of the contemporary Arab people and the wars we are enduring.

I had to start somewhere. So I started with myself, being the family archivist, to start building a database of our lives, histories and experiences. By starting with the most personal, maybe we have a chance to share our stories and subsequently, a shift might happen in the public’s scope of perception and understanding of my region. We could move from being just numbers to becoming actual people — and the world would begin to understand that we are witnessing the slow destruction of an entire culture.

Above: Watch this short film to see footage from el Khalil’s family homes in Lebanon, as well as experience the gallery installation, including the poem tree and ambient sound pieces.

This occupation happened, and my grandfather died without ever being able to return to his home. These facts are true. The walls are a physical connection to a story fading fast into the past. They are artifacts, relics, affirmations of a specific history that must be told.

Ultimately I am bringing to light the disaster that happened to us, with the hope that we can find the capacity to love again, and to forgive, and move forward. But to move forward, we also have to fully acknowledge our past. Everyone has to take responsibility before any kind of reconciliation can begin.

When you went to the house for the first time, was your father with you?

Yes.

It must have been really hard on him. It must have felt very strange.

Yes, it was. What was even stranger was I went into some of these bunkers and there was graffiti in Hebrew, but also in English. A lot of American Jews are flown to Israel for free under a principle of birthright. They come and visit, stay in a kibbutz and are taught about their land. Many decide to stay because it’s like a utopia. But there’s the obligatory three-year military service, so eventually these American kids join the army.

So when I was looking at this graffiti, I was like, “It’s some kid from Wisconsin.” He just happened to be Jewish and came to Israel and now he’s in my house! Some of the graffiti was really funny. I remember there was a list of “Top 10 things I want to do when I go back home.” Number one was, I think, “Never wear green and khaki ever again.” Number two was like, “Eat Mom’s cooking.” Number three: “Have sex without having to pay for it.” You realize they’re just kids.

You said that ultimately this work is about forgiveness and compassion. What can you say about the innocence of these soldiers — the innocence of people who get caught up in things that are bigger than themselves?

Yeah, that happens all the time. Regardless of race or gender, when the war machine starts, it’s very hard to avoid it. Most people join armies for economic reasons. Or you have to join a side or die. It’s always the people of lowest income who are the greatest victims, because they don’t have the financial capacity to avoid war.

So kids join the army, they die, family members take revenge — it’s a vicious cycle. And of course it’s very important at this point to understand that these wars are not really home-grown. Lebanon is a proxy. This is America versus Russia. This is Israel versus Iran. What’s happening in Syria now is for resources — oil, gas, water.

My personal understanding of all this is that it’s a continuation of what started on September 11th, because that was the moment where everything changed. There was always war in the Middle East, but this was different because the Americans were very actively involved. What started in Afghanistan and Iraq has been spreading, and even when there were periods of calm in one country, it was blowing up in another one.

“From fire, we create life. From destruction, we find the strength to construct meaning in our lives. If stars destroy themselves, then maybe it’s only natural for us to do the same. We are obeying the fundamental laws of our universe. Churning each other up, and spitting out star stuff. Constantly. Effortlessly.”Al Aql, 2014. Photo: Paolo Pellion

For those of us who live here, I feel the only way to move forward is for us to understand each other better, to come to terms with things, to become personally responsible for where we live and how we interact with our neighbors. So on my part, I feel like the most I can do is to plant these seeds of forgiveness. I’m ready to forgive people for taking away my home. If I can do it, it could be a first step. It’s not easy, but look at South Africa. Through reconciliation projects, there have been possibilities to start living together again. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start.

I don’t know if there’s an ideal model, but I think with time, it is possible. Change has to start from within. So if I can find the capacity to forgive and move forward, maybe my brother can too, and then my cousins, and my friends and then my entire community. And that’s it, you have the seeds of change starting to grow.

What does “From Mirfaq to Vega” refer to?

Mirfaq and Vega are the names of stars I worked under as I painted this summer. Being in the south of Lebanon, there was very little light pollution. I spent many nights sleeping outdoors staring at these two bright points, thinking about how each human being is a beautiful shining star. Together, we make up the constellations of the universe. We are all connected. I felt our ancestors walking with me. “Our fire burns bright. We are creating our path to light. Bombs cannot fall here tonight.”

]]>http://blog.ted.com/2014/11/21/a-ted-fellow-makes-art-from-the-rubble-of-a-home-lost-to-war/feed/4Artist_portrait_photo_Eva_ZayatmmechinitaZena el Khalil poses in the midst of her new exhibit, which makes the rubble of her mother and father's homes in Lebanon into beautiful art. Photo: Eva Zayat"The size of your faith is the size of your intellect." Al Aql, 2014. Indian ink, ashes, fabric and hair on canvas. Photo: Zena el KhalilFrom Mirfaq to Vega installation view, with Israeli Army Blast “T” Walls found on site of the family home in Hasbaya, May 2000. Photo: Zena el Khalil"Love, forgiveness." Mantra, detail. Photo: Zena el Khalil“From fire, we create life. From destruction, we find the strength to construct meaning in our lives. If stars destroy themselves, then maybe it’s only natural for us to do the same. We are obeying the fundamental laws of our universe. Churning each other up, and spitting out starstuff. Constantly. Effortlessly.” Al Aql, 2014. Photo: Zena el KhalilBeirut, I love you: Fellows Friday with Zena el Khalilhttp://blog.ted.com/2012/10/12/beirut-i-love-you-fellows-friday-with-zena-el-khalil/
http://blog.ted.com/2012/10/12/beirut-i-love-you-fellows-friday-with-zena-el-khalil/#commentsFri, 12 Oct 2012 16:56:35 +0000http://blog.ted.com/?p=63771[…]]]>

You express yourself through nearly every artistic medium – painting, performance, writing, film. What drives you to make art?

Most of my work is reactionary to where I live. And where I live now, Beirut, is one of the most volatile places in the world. Through my work, I am trying to create bridges between cultures and religions. My work is a by-product of political and economic turmoil, focusing on issues of violence, gender and religion and their place in our bubblegum culture. I try to expose the superficiality of war, creating an alternate reality. My weapons of choice are love and humor. The need to create justice through art is deeply rooted in my childhood, and I know I have consciously chosen to live in a place where my work is necessary. But I have also learned that anger is the worst tool, and violence begets violence.

It is easy to assume certain things about my work when you see all the glitter and beads. But I found that in order to paint or write about violence, I had to create my own language and my own visual vocabulary. I think that there is a big difference between popular culture and kitsch. Popular culture is an international language. It builds bridges and brings people together. It can destroy stereotypes if used in the right way. And it can promote peace because it’s so accessible. I strongly believe that my work should speak a language that people know how to use. Peace should be completely accessible.

I don’t use glue in my work, I use tiny pins — thousands of them! I have developed a type of canvas where everything is stuck in with pins. In a way, it reflects the instability of my region. It is also a reflection of a huge problem we have in Lebanon that some have labeled as collective amnesia — we try too hard to forget our wars too quickly, our history is constantly being rewritten to suit different political and religious ideologies. At any point in time, one could completely rearrange my paintings to tell a different story.

The physical process of using pins puts me into a state of meditation — this act of repetition creates an environment of peace around me. While I’m in my studio, I don’t worry about bombs dropping. You see: glitter reflects light. And the more color and glitter I use, the closer I am to the light — to the source. The pink objects and embellishments are my positive energy. I take aim and shoot them into the heart of fear to negate the negative.

“It’s A Boy!”, 2008. Click to see larger size. Photo: Rachel Tabet

You are Lebanese but have lived all over the world. What was your path to Beirut?

I was born in London but spent the first 15 years of my life in Lagos, where my family had emigrated. It was an incredible experience, but it forced me to grow up very quickly. I was very aware of what I had and what others didn’t have. On the drive to school every morning, I saw faces and situations that broke my heart. I became very angry at the way the world works, with our differences. I was angry about being Lebanese. I was angry about being a girl. I was angry about feeling like there was nothing I could do to change the situation.

Then I discovered student council and ran for secretary in 5th grade. I made only one poster, drawn by hand, and lost. The poster, however, was pretty good, and I realized that I could draw. I started copying album art of heavy metal bands, and kept getting better. In the 6th grade, I ran for class president and won. But this time it was because I rode a horse into school with a big “Vote for Zena” sign. I think that was my first site-specific installation attempt.

By the time I was done with school in Lagos, I understood there were two things that I loved more than anything: art and politics. I moved to the UK for boarding school and continued to win school elections with really cool poster campaigns. Unfortunately, my high school principal was racist and had a deep dislike of Arabs. In my senior year of high school, when I was school president, he still managed to suspend me and prohibited me from speaking at the graduation ceremony. I was really disappointed, because even though I’d presented myself as a rebel rouser, like any teenage kid, I just wanted to be accepted. With that thought in mind, I decided to move to Lebanon where maybe I would find other people like me. Maybe I would find home.

So you were in Beirut during the Israeli invasion of 2006, which gave birth to your blog, Beirut Update.

The first night the bombs started falling, I really thought I was going to die. And I wanted to make sure the whole world knew exactly how and why. The media were very slow to report on what was going on and I thought I could do my part, or at least tell my own story. I wrote all through the night, and in the morning I sent the email to every person in my address book, even people I hadn’t spoken to in years. I managed to sleep for a few hours, and when I woke up, my inbox was flooded. So many people wrote back asking how they could help.

A day later the UK Guardian got in touch, asking if they could reprint my first three emails. I agreed and they gave me the whole G2 supplement, and soon after syndicated the emails. My letters had gone global. Then a friend helped me set up a blog so people could reach my work more easily. I had no idea then how important blogging was to become for the Arab world.

I saw that the more transparent and human I was, the more audience I reached. It was the first time in my life I was so afraid, but in that month, I learned that love was the most powerful weapon. It was almost a self-defense mechanism: love would keep me alive. And just like Scheherazade, I believed that writing every day would bring me a new day. I wrote about life under the bombs, about the environmental disasters caused by the war, and about my best friend, Maya, who had recently been diagnosed with cancer. I thought that if people read about Maya’s condition, it could encourage them to call their governments and demand a ceasefire.

I stopped blogging the day the invasion ended. It was a war diary and I wanted it to stay that way — a testament to what had happened. I saw it as a painting, and it was pretty much complete. I only went back to post an article after Maya passed away. A lot of people became very connected to her through my writing, and I knew I had to share the sad news with them. A month later, a friend of mine was almost killed in the West Bank during an Israeli raid. I posted her letter, but then knew it was time to stop. There were always going to be moments like that, and I really wanted the blog to be what it was and nothing more. The painting was now complete.

You also happened to be in New York during 9/11. Tell us about xanadu*, your response to the event.

I lived in NYC from 2000 to 2004. Watching the first tower fall, I knew my life and the world would never be the same again. I knew the repercussions were going to be long and disastrous. It was not easy being an Arab in New York after that. I wanted to find a way to give back and stop the anti-Arab sentiments, which were spiraling out of control. My friend Imad Khachan and I started a nonprofit gallery space just off Washington Square Park that focused on exhibiting the work of Arab artists living in New York. I thought this would be a way to break stereotypes and overcome fear and suspicion. I also exhibited local artists, and we built a community of artists, writers and musicians with monthly exhibitions, readings and performances.

Now xanadu* is based in Beirut. I have shifted its focus to supporting young writers, especially helping poets get their first books published. I have also published the first few editions of a local comic book magazine. The idea behind xanadu* is to provide young or underrepresented artists, writers and musicians with a platform to leap off of: the first exhibition, first performance or first publication, whatever is needed to help creative people fly.

I strongly believe that our region can change for the better. And I believe that education, art and literature can help bring about positive changes. I know this from myself — if I hadn’t jumped into all that drawing and dancing (some call it head-banging), I could have gotten myself into a lot more trouble. I think I was very lucky to have been able to travel and receive the education I did. This is my way of giving back. I love working alone in the studio, but I also love being with a growing community. One of the greatest joys I experience is handing over a book, hot off the press, to the poet.

What are you up to now?

After Maya passed away, I went through a very difficult period and stopped painting. I pretty much gave up on life, and also went through a divorce. All in one year. But one night I had a beautiful dream. Maya had come back. I woke up not knowing where I was, the dream was so real. I started writing the dream and kept writing, and things developed. Two years later, my book, Beirut, I Love You was born. A wonderful woman, Samar Hammam, had found me during the war and convinced me that I had to write a book — a book that wasn’t the blog. She became my agent and got it published into several languages, and then I spent a year traveling to festivals to talk about it. At some point, my travels landed me in Italy, and that’s where I met Gigi Roccati and fell in love. The universe can be so generous, and life had given me a second chance.

Gigi, being a director, convinced me that we had to make a feature film based on my book. I accepted and we began a grueling two-year process of adapting it into a screenplay. We now have some incredible producers on board and will be filming soon. I am going to be making original artwork for the film too.

Another ongoing body of work I’m working on is Goods for Gaza. There is a blockade on Gaza by the Israeli army via land, air and sea. In 2010, a group of activists tried to sail into Gaza carrying much needed supplies and aid for the people. One of the ships, the Mavi Marmara, was boarded by Israeli commandos and some activists were killed. The army claimed the boats were a threat, bringing in weapons. I was curious. What exactly is this blockade all about, and what are the items banned from Gaza? What items caused the death of these activists? I did a simple online search and found the list. It contains about 2,000 items, which includes the following: desks, donkeys, A4 paper, biscuits, goats and ginger. I have been making a mixed media painting for each word, and will continue to do so until the blockade ends. Palestinian children should have the right to eat chocolate.
And you have a book coming out!

Yes, Beirut, I Love You is finally coming out in the States on October 16, published by The New York Review of Books. We’ve planned fun events that include slide shows, short film screening and a tap-dancing performance by the spectacular TED Fellow, Andrew Nemr. On October 18, I’ll be at Busboys & Poets in DC.

The Pink Bride, 2010. Click to see larger size. Photo: Gigi Roccati

Last but not least, this November will be the 10-year anniversary of my ongoing Pink Bride of Peace project. I wear a big pink wedding dress and run around the streets of Beirut during the yearly Beirut International Marathon in an attempt to spread peace and love. I have passed out flowers to hundreds of people over the past years — and even some kisses every now and then. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s working, but I do know that I’m trying my best. And the fact that I can still fit into that same dress after 10 years — well, it’s a great sign!

Why do you use pink so prominently in your work?

Pink is like cotton candy. It’s fluffy and sweet. Too much of it, though, will leave a bad pain in your stomach. It’s quick and superficial. Barbie, GI Joe politics, and Cherry Cola to me represent a generation completely embedded in consumer culture. We are the pink generation. But it is also the color of nonviolent protest. I convert objects of violence into a celebration of life through a transformation into something beautiful. It’s like the plastic I use in my paintings, which is made from oil — the same oil mankind is at war for.

What’s your experience of being a TED Fellow been like?

It’s amazing so far. And I feel that it’s something that will keep getting better as I learn how to navigate through this incredible opportunity. As an artist, I’m used to working long hours alone, never asking for help. One of the best parts about being a Fellow is the incredible coaching sessions you get. It has helped me tremendously — artists are shy to talk about their work. TED is helping me gain the confidence I need!

But even more than that are the other Fellows. I sometimes felt like I was the only person in the whole universe who thinks and feels things to a certain depth. And then when I walked into the first meeting at the lobby in Long Beach, I was blown away and also very humbled. I feel like I’m gaining a new and beautiful family who understand me without me having to say a word. They give me the courage I need to keep going forward. I know I will never feel alone again. This is truly a humbling experience and I feel so lucky to be part of it!